how now brownpau
After church yesterday, Amy and I went over to the Old Patent Office Building to wander around the National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum. We looked at Asher B. Durand’s American landscapes and portraits of key Spanish figures in the American Revolution, wandered down the Great Hall, and peered through the windows at the soon-to-be-opened Kogod Courtyard. Some photos:
This is Caturday – Baby Steps With The SD1000 Edition.
More photos of the cat as I get used to the new camera.
Rowers carrying their boat up past Washington Harbour.
(RowCarry.jpg uploaded by brownpau.)
As previously mentioned, I just got a Canon Powershot SD 1000 / Digital Ixus 70 to replace my A400, which, while functional, is succumbing to age and wear. (Mostly it’s because of cracks in the casing from the night Fr. Nebres borrowed it to take a look at his photo, then handed it back to me, at which point my slippery fingers lost their grip and dropped it to the hard marble floor. Ever since then the A400 has been occasionally switching between camera and playback modes spontaneously, and the power and shutter buttons have not always worked consistently.)
Photos I’ve taken so far with the SD1000 have been acceptably clear and vibrant. The camera body is lighter and much less clumsy in the hand than I expected of such a square-cornered model, and the user interface is much quicker and more responsive than on the older A400 — with a 2.5″ LCD which is more than large enough for my needs. Probably my only gripe about the UI is that it now hides Stitch Assist mode deep in the Setup Menu, whereas on the A400 it was more quickly accessible from the Function Menu. I do take a lot of panoramic stitches, so that’s going to be a bit of a pain.
My first photo taken with the SD 1000 was a macro shot of — whom else — Pandora the Cat. Unfortunately, I had not mastered the art of remembering to turn off the flash, so it went off right in her face. It’s a good thing her eyes were shut at that moment — and her tongue was out:
Subsequent photos of my wife and myself turned out okay, though a bit dark in auto-ISO mode with backlighting:
And I also amused myself with the long-exposure feature by trying my hand at some crude light-drawing:
The face approximates how I feel about the camera.
It’s old! It’s stone! It’s Old Stone House! On M Street in Georgetown.
(OldStone.jpg uploaded by brownpau.)
Amy just showed me this Mexican “Skull Pop” she got from someone at work. Something to do with Day of the Dead, I guess.
Philippines on front page of Washington Post, cited in Rumsfeld memo with Somalia as example of ‘violent extremism.’ Somalia. You suck, Rumsfeld!
More on Rumsfeld’s “snowflake memos.”
(WaPoRums.jpg uploaded by brownpau.)
It’s not my ristorante, but it’s the most awesome name for one.
(Paolo_s.jpg uploaded by brownpau.)
The Red Line was a mess again last night, so Amy and I opted to ride the Orange Line till Capitol South, then just trek home from there. It was a cool evening, the last glow of sunlight fading over the southwest horizon, the sky clear and mostly cloudless.
As we walked towards the Capitol Lower Terrace, I remembered that Comet Holmes was still bright, so we looked up to the northeast sky. It was a bit hard to find, but sure enough, in the constellation Perseus (to the right of Casseiopeia’s flat sideways “W”), there was a faint, fuzzy yellow dot, visible to the naked eye despite the bright, diffuse glare from the floodlit Capitol Dome. Far out there, a dying comet had just belched a cloud of ice and dust, bright and reflective enough that it could shine down on us even through urban light pollution.
Sadly I had no camera with me, and it probably wouldn’t have been able to pick up that faint, fuzzy yellow dot anyway, even without the light glare. Times like these I wish I had a telescope, but then that would mean lugging it all the way down to the National Mall and setting up the tripod and it makes me sleepy and tired just thinking about it, so here’s Spaceweather’s Comet Holmes gallery instead.
Then we went home and ate dumplings and noodles, and Amy sketched an Osage Orange we had picked up, and I played multiplayer Half Life 1 and sucked at it.
To replace my aging A400, I put my birthday money towards a new Canon Powershot SD 1000 / Digital IXUS 70. Here it is, just arrived in the mail and freshly unboxed. Apparently it’s an anniversary edition camera that’s supposed to look like the original Elph or something like that.